22-16 South Africa wins both legs at home and seem to be in the driver's seat to repeat as TriNations champs. Unless Australia and NZ can wake up.
Does Newlands have the advantage of higher elevation as some of the other stadiums? (Not sure if it is Ellis Park or Loftus Road, apparently at least one of them are formidable home grounds due to high elevation). It was incredibly windy at Newlands. But when Daniel Carter plays bad, it is little surprise All Blacks don't do good. He had 2 very bad kicks trying to find Rico Gear near the try line. I don't know if the wind was to blame for wayward kicks, or if Carter was off of his game. Also, in the second half deep in their own half, Daniel Carter took a very soft punt instead of booting the football downfield. Another All Black tried to catch it, but it had Springboks written all over it. It looked like a suicidal maneuver and I don't know what the hell was Carter thinking when he kicked it like that. Has Justin Marshall retired now from All Blacks duties? I'm pretty sure Carlos Spencer now has, but wasn't aware of Marshall. Didn't Marshall play against the Lions in at least 1 test? The Springbok didn't really look as good as their score, really. In fact, when Pretorius wasted good chances by taking premature drop-kicks, the crowd was pretty unhappy with him, and voiced their displeasure loudly. The part where Percy Montgomery tried to kick a field goal, but the wind kept knocking the footabll down 2-3 times in a row was hilarious. It is still possible that the Springboks will win at least 1 of their remaining 2 matches and retain Tri Nations.
because the boks never looked like scoring tries against the All Blacks(thats the reason why they went drop kick crazy) their only try against the ab's was a gift from Kelleher at home NZ will win, no doubt about that they might take aussie out at home, mostly because of their injuries to their backline
Marshall has gone to england(after the lions series), rule in new zealand is that you cannot be selected for the all blacks if you are not playing in New Zealand
That sounds like a stupid rule. I suppose the reason for it was to ensure that locals are able to see the best players from their own country. But does it make sense in the professional era? Do the Wallabies and Springbok also have similar rule? Imagine if Argentina were to institute such a rule. They would hardly be able to field a team. No wonder Rugby Union is not as popular worldwide as Association Football with countries making up rules like that.
I believe the boks have a similar rule, not to sure about aussie in the past(before the pro era) players would go to europe in the rugyby off-season, people like Jhon Kirwan who went to italy would come back when the NPC started so he could be selected for the all blacks
Australia has that rule. It's hardly a stupid rule, it's meant to keep New Zealand players in New Zealand, and overall it works. It took Mehrtens and Marshall for-bloody-ever to leave NZ. BTW, Newlands is in the (duh) Newlands section of Cape Town. I'll leave it to guess if it's at altitude or not. The AB's never really looked like winning either. The Bokke pack is very, very strong. Du Randt had a field day with Hayman in the scrum.
the all blacks should have scored at least one more try in the last 20 of the first half, Rico Gear specially looked dangerous everytime he touched the ball Jerry Collins had a very good game showing that hes not just a big tackler that pass to Gear would have made Carter proud its the same story everytime we go to South Africa, at home the all blacks will win, specially if we can get Sitivatu back for the game The tight 5 will have to step it up a gear, specially Meleamu in the lineout
Come on man, not everyone is born with knowledge of everything, so no need to be tangential. I could also make some statements about some obscure places like Connaught Circle or Napien Sea Road, and leave it to guesses about them based on which sections of Delhi and Mumbai they're in. And I'm pretty sure those guesses wouldn't come out right the first time. Anyway, I did some preliminary research and found that Newlands is at the sea level in Cape Town. Loftus (in Pretoria) and Ellis Park (in Johannesburg) are at elevations of 1500 m and 1600 m respectively.
OK, don't really want to flag a dead horse, but wish to set the record straight. What you say above is comparing apples with oranges. The comparison is between a district of Cape Town (Newlands) versus a district of Bombay (Napien Sea Road). Not between Cape Town and a district of Bombay. Nor is it between Cape Town and Bombay. (Which BTW would blow Cape Town out of the water. Bombay with a population of 18 million compared to some 3 million for Cape Town. South Africa is roughly 46 million, so we're talking of roughly 40% of South African population in Bombay alone. And not surprisingly, Bombay is a massive, massive economic hub which Cape Town doesn't even come close to. So, it beats Cape Town in the "well-known" aspect too.) There is no dispute that Cape Town is a rather large and well-known city. But it is (or at least was to me until few days ago) hardly household knowledge that Newlands is a district in Cape Town. I could have looked it up myself, without being lazy and posting a quick question here. But then, so could most of the stuff on message boards be looked up by anyone without an interactive message board medium. Anyway, enough of threadjack on this topic and I promise not to continue with this digression any further.